Tag Archives: breakup

Hitched: Should Marriage Be A Renewable Contract?

Andrea GrimesMarch 13, 2013 //

I seriously never thought I’d say this: I miss being engaged.

I don’t miss wedding planning, and I don’t miss being talked to as if, as a human with a ring and a vagina, I had no interests aside from talking about the details of “my” (so rarely, “our”) big day. I sure as shit don’t miss shopping for wedding dresses. I don’t miss getting Wedding Industrial Side-Eye because Patrick and I had, like, a wedding budget.

What I miss is the day-to-day experience of preparing to love someone publicly. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: On What It Means To Be A Real Friend

Julie GersteinJanuary 31, 2013 //
Friends We Need
Six types of friends every woman needs. Read More »
Digital Friendships
Is the computer killing our bonds with friends? Read More »
FB Friends To Keep
Because they're so fun to stalk! Read More »

In fall of 2010, I went through maybe one of the lowest points in my life. I was dumped over IM by my live-in boyfriend (yes, that one) and due to a zillion circumstances outside of my control, my work life was in complete chaos. I walked around for weeks with a burning feeling in my stomach, unable to eat or sleep and in a total daze. I committed the cardinal sin of crying at work, and begged a doctor friend to write me a prescription for anxiety meds (I didn’t have health insurance at the time). I went to therapy. I bought self-help books on cognitive therapy to try and shake the shitty, negative thoughts that constantly ran through my head. I felt like a raw nerve with absolutely no hope of ever healing.

So I did the completely sensible thing, and bought a plane ticket to Barcelona. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: I Think I’ve Figured The Allure Of Online Dating Out

Jessica WakemanOctober 23, 2012 //
Ambivalent Single Lobster
Who says lobsters mate for life? This one is ambivalently single. Read More »
Too Picky?
Let's see what does and doesn't belong on that list. Read More »
I Found A BF Online
love photo
How Jessica found a boyfriend online dating. Yes, it really happens! Read More »

Last night, I did something I thought I’d never do again, especially not on a random Monday evening: I reactivated my online dating profile.

I looked at the description of myself I wrote the last time I was single. I looked at the photos that I had thought best represented myself.  I checked my months-old messages. I read the new messages that came in as my account had been re-activiated again. And all the while I thought, Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, what are you doing?

This morning, I deactivated it again. You see, I think I had just wanted instant gratification. Keep reading »

Dealbreaker: My Long-Distance Relationship Didn’t Have Trust

Lyneka LittleApril 20, 2012 //
Trust After Cheating?
Can you trust again after infidelity? Dear Wendy explains it all. Read More »
On Being Honest
Is it possible to be too honest with your boo? Read More »
Managing An LDR
How to deal with a long-distance relationship. Read More »

Two years into our relationship, Rick* received a verbal offer that would send him 2,500 miles away.

I couldn’t fathom how we could possibly have a successful relationship living such a great distance apart — even though I was the woman who’d urged him to apply for the job. He had asked me months before the job was even a possibility how I would feel about him splitting his time between San Francisco and Brooklyn. I uttered something along the lines, “I’m okay with that — as long as I don’t have to move.” But, once becoming long-distance became a reality, I suddenly felt abandoned. Instead of, “I’m happy for you,” our talks generally ended with me stating, “I don’t see this relationship lasting beyond December.”

I said it more than once.

Keep reading »

How To Divvy Up Stuff After A Breakup

Jessica WakemanApril 5, 2012 //
Ugly Breakups
When breakups get ugly. Read More »
10 Coldest Celeb Breakups
Taylor Swift Joe Jonas photo
Damn, these breakups were icy! 10 Photos »
Terrible Breakups
Bad breakups to be thankful for Read More »
breaking up photo

One is the loneliest number, worse than two …

Well, unless he was an asshat. In which case being a Party of One is just fine, thank you. Of course, before you can move onwards and upwards, you have to get your stuff back — whether it’s just a few pairs of dirty panties in his laundry basket or the contents of an entire “girlfriend drawer.” He’s not going to haggle over your cotton thongs (unless he’s a creep, instead of an asshat). But what about the stuff you accumulated together during the relationship?  

Here’s how to make sense of who owns what following a breakup, after the jump … Keep reading »

Girl Talk: On Carpetbombing A Relationship

Jessica WakemanSeptember 9, 2011 //

“It was like I had to do something serious, something to cause a rift, that we couldn’t come back from.”

That was my friend Caitlin*. She stopped me dead in my tracks. We were walking off brunch last Sunday afternoon, a brunch filled with sharing our mutual dating tales and reminiscing about our past relationships that brought us to where we are today. Caitlin started telling me for the first time about her ex-boyfriend, a guy she had been with for four years in her late teens and early-20s. They’d fallen in love, moved in together and settled down seemingly happily. Then Caitlin started to feel anxious. She was too young to settle down. She wanted to “go out.” She wanted to have more life experiences that didn’t necessarily involve him. It wasn’t that he was doing anything wrong; in fact, she still recalled him sweetly. So she started to sabotage the relationship, to hurt him so badly that they had to break up.

She had carpetbombed the relationship. She needed to carpetbomb the relationship. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: Compromising Positions

Jessica WakemanJuly 1, 2011 //

I made decision when I was a young adult on the kind of regrets I’d try to have: I want to regret only the things I did do, not the things I didn’t. So far it’s worked out just as I’ve hoped. I have never had to look back and wish I had fallen deeply in love, or traveled around Europe when I was young, or quit a steady job to freelance write fulltime, because I’ve done all of those things. I’m proud that I have very few regrets about things in my life I have done — very, very few, like, I’m struggling to think of examples now. But as each month brings more and more distance between myself and a devastating heartbreak I suffered with the guy I wanted to spend my life with, one regret is becoming pronounced. I look back now and I’m not proud of all the small compromises that I made for him without, I think, getting as much as I should have in return. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: When Breakups Get Ugly

Jessica WakemanMay 5, 2011 //

I guess I was lucky: I made it to age 26 without any really messy breakups. Sure, there were breakups that I thought were bad at the time. In the moment, they all felt terrible. But getting dumped after traveling an hour and a half to see someone or getting dumped on a sailboat in the middle of Long Island Sound — two breakups from my “Worst Of The Worst Highlights Reel” — mostly turned out to be good stories later. Hurt feelings soothed, cooler heads prevailed and I’m pretty much on friendly terms with everyone I’ve ever dated. I even had a coffee with one of my ex-boyfriends just recently. For better or for worse, I’m a deeply loyal and forgiving person. I see the best in people because I want to see the best in people. My most recent breakup was messy and nasty from the get-go and I’m adamant now that we can’t be friends. I put that relationship behind me as much as I could. So I was totally unprepared this week when it once again got unexpectedly nasty. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: I Get More Than One Shot At Love

Jessica WakemanMarch 31, 2011 //
Dating Good Guys
boyfriend photo
Not every woman wants to date an a-hole. Read More »
Welcome To Heartbreak
broken heart photo
Jessica is suddenly single. Find out what happened. Read More »
Dater X
dating photo
Ten things Dater X did right as a single girl. Read More »

The other day, my new dude, Juan, and I were talking about breakups. We both went through bad ones in the past six months or so and he has a female friend who’s in the drinking-and-crying stage of a breakup now. (‘Tis the season, I guess?) After they hung out, Juan told me he could still recall the sting she’s feeling right now.

“I remember how that is: feeling like no one is ever going to love you in the same way again,” he said. “You feel at that time like it couldn’t possibly happen ever again … even though you know logically that it will.”

When he said that, something clicked in me. That’s it. That’s the anxiety that I have been feeling these past three months after the end of a love affair. I have a complete willingness to get back on the saddle but have been feeling like no one is ever going to love me “in the same way again.” The feeling — for whatever reason — that I had only one chance at this.

Tila Tequila gets, like, 45 shots at love. Why did I convince myself that I don’t get more than one? Keep reading »

How To Handle Awkward Moments Without A Panic Attack

Jessica WakemanMarch 30, 2011 //

Karma’s a bitch, dude. This morning, I was frolicking through Starbucks, smiling to myself about how awesome my life has gotten. On Friday, I’m moving out of my parents’ house and into my own apartment. Today I woke up next to my new Gentleman Caller the night after we decided to date each other exclusively. The sun is shining. The birds were trilling. Tra la la la la la la!

And then I ran into the woman whose ex-boyfriend cheated on her with me two years ago. A woman who didn’t respond to my multiple apologetic emails because, let’s be honest, she probably hates my putrid guts. Keep reading »

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